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Tuesday, 10 July 2018

The Magic of Hebrew

“The Hebrew language... is the only glue which holds
together our scattered bones. It also holds together the rings in the chain of time....
It binds us to those who built pyramids, to those who shed their blood on the
ramparts of Jerusalem, and to those who, at the burning stakes, cried Shema
Yisrael!”

I love languages. I speak six and teach three. These factors, I believe, have provided me
with a rather fair and objective way to study and evaluate the wisdom of
languages. Furthermore, it has given me a tool to better understand and more
greatly appreciate my own as the wise words of Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
lucidly articulated it: “He who knows no foreign language does not know his
own.”

Of course, everyone should love their
own language first. I do. I love Hebrew, the few millennia
old language of the Jewish People. I love it not merely because it is my
language and the language of my People that connects our Jewish past, present
and future as Y.L. Peretz suggested in the quote above. I love it because, I
found that of all the languages that I know and teach, Hebrew is, by far, one
of the most cogent and sensible.

And before anyone accuses me of being “an elitist” or being “biased,” please
allow me to explain.

Hebrew, one of the most ancient languages in the history of mankind, is based
on the root structure. What this means is that every word consists of basic three
letters (sometimes four). These three letters are called Shoresh (root).

Just like the root of a tree that spawns a stem and branches, so does the root
of a Hebrew word produce and create words (I understand that Latin is another
language, albeit classical, that utilizes root etymology). Similarly, just as a
root of a tree forms branches that are linked to it and resemble each other, so
does the root of Hebrew words help form
words that, in most cases, share a similar meaning and are hence related.

Let me expound on this unique attribute of Hebrew with a few examples.

Zachor זכור, which means remember, is a word almost
every Jewish person is familiar with. Remember is not only a word, it is a central
tenet in our Jewish culture, one that is an integral part of the DNA of the
Jewish People, past and present

To any non-Hebrew speaker, in this case, English speakers, some of these words
would seem unrelated. And this is where the magic of Hebrew comes into play. Ensuing
the logic that I tried to render above will help us see how these words are
related. The simple fact that they all share the same Shoresh implies that they
are related in their meaning, as I suggested above.

We can all agree that the English words: memory, remember, souvenir (which is
supposed to remind us of places and people) remnant (which refers to that
leftover that is supposed to remind us of something or someone) are related.

However, what do “male” and “secretary”
have to do with memory, or remember, you may ask.

Let us start with the easy part. A
secretary shares the same root of זכרbecause he/she
are expected to remember and remind their bosses of their schedule and other
important issues.

There are, though, two possible explanations
as to why the word “male” shares the same shoresh with “memory.” The first is
found in the Reuveni essay which compiles a collection of Midrashim (the sages’
interpretation of Jewish Holy Scriptures). There, we are told that G-d names
man “male” so that he can remember His Creator and his Commandments, for that
is what man was created for.

The second explanation can be discerned
through comparing semitic cultures.

In those cultures, the male was the
provider, the one who inherited the family assets, whose name was passed on to
posterity. That is how he was going to be remembered

No
wonder then that Hebrew is also called לשון הקודש”
(Leshon Hakodesh, the Holy language). קודש
(Kodesh) is derived from the shoresh ק ד ש which means to dedicate, to sanctify. It
is the language of Am Yisrael and the Jewish People, עם
קדוש (Am Kadosh, Holy nation) the ones who G-d sanctified and
dedicated to Himself.